Who are the Palestinian militants?

I am getting increasingly fed-up with the way so much of the western MSM continues mindlessly to echo the refrain that the Hamas people are “militants”. You almost always see the word “militant” attached to the name “Hamas” once or many times in any news report…
But the militants in the Palestinians arena these days are not Hamas people. Hamas has not undertaken any militant action at all against Israel (or anyone else) since the end of Setember 2005. And that brief single episode in September was the result of a ghastly, if perhaps understandable, mistake on its behalf. Prior to that, Hamas had maintained the discipline of the tahdi’eh (“calming”) quite fully since the end of last March. And once the Hamas leaders recognized their mistake in September, they immediately reinstituted the discipline of the tahdi’eh.
The “militants” these days in Palestine are people affiliated with Fateh, not with Hamas.
Hamas is politically hardline, yes. But it is not now actively “militant.” Writers and editors make a serious mistake– whether wilfully, or through inattention– if they fail to recognize the difference. We should give credit where credit is due to Hamas, for having shown so much discipline and self-restraint with respect to the tahdi’eh, which it has stuck to, remember, in the face of numerous continuing acts of anti-Palestinian violence committed by Israel over the past year.

43 thoughts on “Who are the Palestinian militants?”

  1. The “militants” these days in Palestine are people affiliated with Fateh, not with Hamas.
    Agreed on Hamas, but I’d also characterize Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees as militant, and neither (especially the former) are closely affiliated with Fatah.

  2. I agree with Jonathan on that, as with Helena on Hamas. In fact I think a great deal of the MSM terminology is devilishly unhelpful. Extremists is one of my own bug-bears. Extreme in relation to what? Hardline is fairly poor too, as it really only means, surely, that you stick to your own line, hard. So you could, I suppose, be a hardline moderate or a hardline reformer. Two other terms which I also find difficult. Are there any words that I am comfortable with? If not, perhaps I should refrain from language use. Hmmm.
    More importantly, until the MSM is capable of seeing organisations such as Hamas as ‘normal’ features of a political environment, rather than an exotic growth, they are not going to get very far in understanding them. I guess one might characterise Hamas as ‘social conservative interventionist status quo public service’ oriented, which is a pretty ugly formulation. It’s a kind of political organisation for which we probably don’t have so many corresponding parties in the West since our right and centre have got so fanatically free-market, although I suppose one could point to elements within traditional post WW2 Christian Democracy in Europe, if one were determined to risk cross-cultural comparisons. To use militant or extremist or radical as the adjective of choice when about to type the word Hamas is to court instant misapprehension, I think.

  3. An informed evaluation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict leads to a conclusion not favorable to continued Israeli occupation and not favorable to continuing massive U.S. aid to Israel. The AIPACers like to create the impression that most if not All Palestinians are “militant” and Islamic terrorists.
    Now you don’t want to be soft on Islamic Militants do you?
    I think Hamas still deserves the designation “Militant”, however, through adherence to the cease-fire they may avoid the designation “Terrorist”. As to the point of almost always seeing the word “militant” attached to the name “Hamas”, I think a good way of checking for bias is comparing coverage of Hamas to the IRA or Tamil Tigers. Does the MSM almost always attach “militant” to the Tigers of Tamil or in the past to the IRA?

  4. Wouldn’t the most enlightening comparison to Hamas be its antecedent, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood? Based on last year’s coverage of Egypt’s parliamentary election, the American MSM (a term I like about as much as Nicholas likes “extremist) did seem to understand the Egyptian ikhwan as a political phenomenon rather than a vague “militant” or “extremist” force.

  5. Helena,
    Your post makes me think of Chomsky’s critique of the MSM; he argues that it is not an accident when distorted or misleading terminlogy is used. Such language serves the U.S. agenda and is aimed at manipulating the public, not revealing the truth. Another funny term used by the MSM is “moderate” to describe U.S. friendly regimes.
    Observer wrote:
    “I think a good way of checking for bias is comparing coverage of Hamas to the IRA or Tamil Tigers.”
    There might be differences in this coverage. However, I think the problems with the MSM reporting go beyond the Middle East. Besides tailoring the news to fit U.S. policy, one criticism against U.S. journalism, for example, is that it does not allow reporters to become familiar with a particular region; American reporters only stay a short time in any region because it is argued they would develop a “pro-region” bias otherwise.

  6. “Militant” was never a good word. It brought to mind people like Stokely Charmichael and Angela Davis, whose level of violence was exponentially less than that of the Palestinian rocketeers and suicide bombers.
    “Terrorist” was even worse than “Militant”. By and large, “Terrorists” produce more anger than terror.
    As head of the Joint Chief of Staffs, Colin Powell was a soldier even in peace time. Likewise with all the uniformed military all around the world. Peacetime does not convert a soldier into a mere “Citizen”.
    Likewise, a period of calm does not convert a “Terrorist” or “Militant” into anything else. Calling Hamas a “Terrorist” organization refers to the kind of organization it is, rather than to what it is actually doing today.
    By and large I try to refer to Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades as Islamist Irregular Military organizations. Sometimes as fanatical Islamist…. Or just as bombers or rocketeers, when they are.
    The fact that they’ve arrested you and you’ve stopped killing doesn’t mean you are no longer a “Killer”. Celine Dion, while eating lunch, is still a “Singer”.
    I’m a militant advocate for the metric system in the US, does that make me a “Militant”?

  7. Helena
    Though Hamas has reduced it’s level of violence considerably since March 2004, saying its attacks were limited to only the one incident you cite (a barrage of rockets aimed at Israel) is something of an exaggeration.
    For example, two days before the ammunition truck explosion* which was the pretext for the abovementioned attack, Hamas kidnapped and murdered an Israeli man (Sasson Nuriel). There were also multiple incidents of rocket fire besides the one you mentioned (in one of these, an Israeli woman (Dana Gelkovitch) was killed, though it’s unclear whether those particular rockets were fired by Hamas; it was one of three Palestinian organizations which claimed responsibility).
    We should give credit where credit is due to Hamas, for having shown so much discipline and self-restraint with respect to the tahdi’eh, which it has stuck to, remember, in the face of numerous continuing acts of anti-Palestinian violence committed by Israel over the past year.
    Even had Hamas kept to the ceasefire as you said, this would still be somewhat disingenous, since Hamas is not the some total of the Palestinian armed factions, and many of the others (most notably IJ and AAMB) continued attacks against Israel during that time.
    *BTW,how exactly is this an “understandable” mistake? Or are you claiming that originally, Hamas sincerely believed Israel was behind the explosion (something which, as I recall, non-Hamas Palestinian sources ruled out almost immediately)?
    **I’ve neglected to place links in this post, because last time I posted this information – with links – the post disappeared somewhere for some reason. For that reason, I noted the names of the victims, to make googling the incidents easier; I can supply a few links if anyone requests.

  8. “Terrorist” vs “Militant”.
    Like the missing second person plural, there does seem to need to be a word for this sort. That is, there needs to be a word for non-uniformed NGO warriors. The Viet Cong at least wore their famed black pajamas, and were called guerillas.
    In English, we make do with the southern “Yall” or the Brooklynese “Youse” as a second person plural. Likewise, without the word “Terrorist” there would be a missing word.
    I was going to propose NUNS as “Non-Uniformed NGO Soldiers” but the word is already taken by some Catholic ladies, who, surprisingly enough, wear uniforms.

  9. Jonathan, you are quite right, of course, about the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. As one Hamas member put it to me, when there is no longer any need to carry out resistance, members will go back to their normal (and in some cases) previous activities. I guess that these problems of mystifying language use arise sometimes out of a simple inability to engage with history, which makes movements like Hamas appear on the page and the screen as though they had arisen, unbidden, as though from a box marked ‘militants, extremists and terrorist’.
    Warren, I am not entirely persuaded by your rather ontological argument, although I concede it would be foolish indeed to conclude that a known bomb-maker, say, was never going to make another bomb just because he is currently ironing his shirt. Macbeth, however, became ‘the deed’s creature’ – a phrase that speaks strongly to me of the ways in which people become what they do rather than simply be what they are, if you see what I mean. If Celine Dion abandoned singing altogether and became, say, a nun, we would not be wrong, would we, in referring to her as a nun? Or even as a former singer?

  10. May I just observe that for some peculiar reason Warren and I seem to have posted on the subject of nuns at exactly the same time? Without conferring. Time to call a halt.

  11. I expect Hamas to stop being a military NGO at about the same time as I expect Celine Dion to become a nun.
    Hamas could fool me. They could suppress the other military organizations currently launching against Israel and merge them all into a united, disciplined PA military force, uniforms and all. At that point they could offer cessation of violence in negotiations and peace might be possible.
    Okay, halt.

  13. Hamas leader-in-exile Khaled Meshaal says the Palestinian militant group will continue to fight Israel and the United States’ Middle East policy will fuel terrorism.
    “Israel cannot have stability with occupation, it has to choose – this is the message Israel should understand,” he said in an interview in Abu Dhabi.
    “Armed resistance is legitimate, all resistance options are open to the Palestinian people and Palestinian factions including Hamas.”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200603/s1598455.htm
    That’s from a couple days ago. I think Hamas would fairly describe themselves as “militants” as their leader is constantly reassuring his people and everyone else that he remains interested in armed resistance and fighting.
    That doesn’t mean the Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigade is not militant or that Zakaria Zubeidi and friends don’t walk around with AK-47s – and occasionally kidnapping people.

  14. My definition.
    To be a Militant Organization means to (1) have weapons, (2) a chain of command, (3) some sort of unit structure, (4) be prepared to employ the above 3 to achieve organizational objectives.
    From Dictionary.com
    mil·i·tant: Having a combative character; aggressive, especially in the service of a cause
    par·a·mil·i·tar·y: Of, relating to, or being a group of civilians organized in a military fashion, especially to operate in place of or assist regular army troops.

  15. Hi. Thanks all for your comments, which are really helping me to clarify my thinking on the issue. probably there’s no single definitive answer here. As I’ve written elsewhere (end of Jan.), Hamas’s present position is similar in this respect to that of the ANC, which maintained its armed wing, the MK, in existence right through the negotiations to the point when– in their context– it was folded into the new, post-April 1994 SANDF… and at the same time the ANC came increasingly to rely on the actions of its huge unarmed wings in the UDF, and its political cadres and negotiators…
    Did we call the ANC in 1990 “militants”? In 1992, or 1993? I know at some point just about everyone started calling them “visionary”, even tho they still had MK in existence… I’m not expecting any westerners to start calling Hamas “visionary” any time soon…

  16. Jonathan and Helena,
    The assumption of your thinking is that terms such as “terrorist” or “militant” assume the labeled party has no self-discipline. In fact, groups like HAMAS and FATAH have used violence to advance their aims. There is no basis in fact, however, to think that HAMAS has forsworn violence for the ballot box as six months is no basis to assert, one way or the other, a change in basic character.
    Frankly, I think that both terms are incorrect for HAMAS in any event. The correct term is “Jihadist.” That term captures what HAMAS has been doing all along and is likely to continue doing.
    I trust, Helena, that you do not mind my posting the above.

  17. In the light of our exploration of the uses of terminology here I was especially delighted to find that in a post on his own blog of December 2, 2002, setting out his own position on Israel – Palestine issues, Jonathan described himself as a ‘miltant moderate’. I am trying to work out if there is comparable way of describing myself.
    Neal. Of course there is no reason to suppose that Hamas might not return to the use of violence, nor even that it is not now sub-contracting it, as it were. But as to its ‘basic character’, as Jonathan has correctly pointed out, this is as likely to be found in its Muslim Brotherhood origins as in its more recent prominence as a resistance movement. That is to say that it has a complex and variegated identity, that the casual use of the term militant can obscure. Indeed, it is the casual, rather than the considered use of the term which is, for me at least, the problem. If oen were to say militant and mean something precise by it, fine, but it’s less helpful when it is a kind of short-hand that short-circuits thought.

  19. Again, I think what upsets Helena is that no one is buying the Hamas party line.
    The “cease fire” can best be attributed to the fact that, starting in spring of 2001, the Israeli government took a number of measures that made terrorism more difficult. The raid into Jenin, the assassination of Hamas’s top leaders, the building of the wall, and just about every other action that Helena and others insisted were “escalations.”
    At best, one could say that Hamas recognized that they were not successfully going to kill anyone, or that they would suffer more if they would, so they have held off on direct attacks on Israel for now, and are hoping to consolidate their position, both militarily and politically.
    One problem is that Hamas itself is not clear on their own message. They a) tout the cease fire as proof of their restraint, yet b) claim that it was their armed resistance that brought them a victory of liberated Gaza, all while saying c) that the withdrawal from Gaza isn’t really a victory because Israel is still oppressing them daily, and d) Hamas will continue its armed resistance because all the Israelis understand is force.
    It’s cognitive dissonance on multiple levels. It sounds good to people in the “Palestine Uber Alles” camp who basically will praise the most anti-Israel faction possible. But to most people, it just doesn’t make sense. That’s because it doesn’t.
    So one can’t be surprised if Hamas is referred to as “militant.” “Militant” is not even a particularly abhorrent or inaccurate term. Some people have claimed its too kind a description.

  20. As far as I am concerned, it is not a matter of the kindness of the term that matters. For example, if I thought that Hamas were, shall we say, a socially retrograde and authoritarian organisation with a record of unacceptable violence and strong anti-semitic tendencies, I would still want writers and editors to be more careful about how they described them, for reasons that are to do with the preservation of thought. Cliché deadens and stops us asking: what is this, who are these people? If they are always ‘militant’, we never get any further than that.
    I don’t notice Helena being ‘upset’ about this, nor do I see her wanting to buy a Hamas party line, not least because, as you rightly point out, the public positions taken by Hamas are riddled with contradiction.
    I take it that the term Palestine Uber Alles is intended to make some kind of connection between stgrong support for Palestinian positions and some kind of affiliation with German supremacism. I will leave it to others to make up their minds whether that terminology is ‘abhorrent’ or simply ‘inaccurate’.

  21. Nicholas,
    You’re new here, so let me explain the context. Helena and some of her amen corner have been calling those who speak in favor of Israel the “Israel Uber Alles crowd” for quite some time. She adds various other insults and barbs every now and again when the mood strikes her. I use it somewhat jokingly so Helena understands what it is like to take what she dishes out.
    I do not consider you to be a member of such a crowd. Your posts seem well reasoned, even if I sometimes disagree.

  22. Nicholas Ridout,
    I guess I do not accept the notion that the Muslim Brotherhood is at all what you claim. I think it is vicious, fascistic group that employs a variety of means, some violent and some not, for purposes of Islamization of society and Jihad fi sabil Allah. Telling me, therefore, that the Muslim Brotherhood is, as you and Jonathan think, complex and variegated identity tells me nothing.
    As I understand it, the Muslim Brotherhood believes deeply in the centrality of Jihad fi sabil Allah. Believing in that means the group could never be, in the end, non-violent. In Egypt, ten of thousands of lives were lost due to that group and offshoot of that group.
    Yes, there is complexity but it is not the complexity you see. And it is also variegated but, again, not as you perceive. And, while HAMAS is the local branch of the Brotherhood, I would not bet on its moderation so far as resolving things with Israel or so far as renouncing violence against Israel or even so far as ending violence against Israel for any real length of time.
    Understand the view of Islam regarding Israel. Understand it because your comment suggests you do not. What follows is a passage from In No God But God, Egypt and the Triumph of Islam (Oxford University Press 2000) by Geneive Abdo, pages 64-65:
    The Grand Sheikh’s battle with his conservative critics boiled over in December 1997, when Tantawi hosted an unprecedented meeting at al-Azhar with chief rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, leader of Israel’s Ashkenazi Jews. Held just before the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, and amid growing outrage in the Arab world toward Israeli intransigence in the stalled Oslo peace process, Tantawi’s meeting was nothing short of explosive. Ordinary Egyptians had never accepted the Camp David peace accords, or for that matter any attempt to normalize relations with Israel. Most Muslims saw the invitation of the chief rabbi into the very citadel of Sunni Islam as a complete betrayal of the fifty-year effort against the Jewish state.
    Egypt’s most respected Islamic thinker, Seleeem al-Awa, spoke for many when he bitterly denounced the visit on the front page of the Islamist daily al-Shaab and wrote a letter of protest to the Research Academy. “I did not believe my eyes when I read that the Grand Sheikh met the Zionist rabbi in Cairo…. It is as if the Zionists want to declare before the whole world that they have achieved normalization with the symbol of Sunni Islam and the entire Islamic world, and with the Sheikh of al-Azhar himself.”
    “Why did you headquarters become the site of normalization with the Zionists? How are we going to welcome Ramadan with the biggest spiritual defeat of the modern age?” al-Awa asked.
    Tantawi was filled with consternation. He had never expected that such a meeting would outrage the Muslim world. Shaken and tense, he defended himself in a long interview with a Qatari satellite television channel that was broadcast in Egypt and across the Middle East. The interviewer asked Tantawi why he had decided to meet the rabbi, when his predecessor, Gad al-Haq, had refused.
    “I followed in the footsteps of our Prophet, peace be upon him. He met Jews and had a dialogue with them…. Was I supposed to refuse to meet him, so he’ll go to his country and say the Sheikh of al-Azhar was unable to meet me?”
    “What is you answer to Dr. Seleem al-Awa who said this meeting is more dangerous than any form of normalization?” the interviewer asked.
    “This is the logic of cowards and pacifists,” Tantawi replied. “Can Dr. al-Awa deny that the Prophet and his companion Abu Bakr met with the Jews? And after that, they say ‘normalization.’ What normalization?”
    Tantawi’s response did little to pacify his critics with al-Azhar. In fact, the controversy handed the traditionalists the evidence they needed to challenge his suitability to hold Sunni Islam’s highest position. “What we read about the meeting between the Sheikh of al-Azhar and the Israeli rabbi shocked us all,” commented Yahya Ismail, the general-secretary of the Azhar’s Scholars’ Front. “We must abide by fatwas issued by senior scholars since 1936, which are official fatwas that forbid dealing with the occupying Jews with any weapon other than jihad (holy struggle) until they evacuate from our lands.”
    In reading the above, consider that Ms. Abdo is rather apologetic for the Islamists and even regarding the veiling of women. She is no supporter of Israel. So, I take the above to be rather interesting since it suggests, as I contend, that there is no real settlement at present between Islamic society and Israel. So, the more extreme elements within Islam will not merely advocate Jihad – as in the above quoted material – but will pursue it, as HAMAS does.
    The Muslim Brotherhood is a more extreme version of orthodoxy. And HAMAS is one and the same.

  23. Joshua, thanks for the clarification. Point taken,
    Neal – I am puzzled. The Muslim Brotherhood is not ‘at all what [I] claim.’ What have I claimed about it, other than complexity and variegation? You address me as though I were an apologist for the MB which I am not. I, and I expect Jonathan too, were merely seeking to offer points of comparison that might make it possible for people (including myself) to understand Hamas, and should not be understood (at least in my case) as an indication of my support for them. You also address me as though I owe you some kind of obligation: ‘Understand the view of Islam regarding Israel. Understand it because your comment suggest you do not.’ I do not, as it happens, think that Islam has a view of Israel. I prefer to think of individual people holding views, and forming organisations to promote those views, with like-minded people, and I am fully aware that there are ample instances of organisations with Muslim members which and who are deeply and irrationally hostile towards Israel, in a manner that I categorically deplore. But I know many devout Muslims who harbour no such feelings and who have worked tirelessly in the cause of peace. You do them a disservice to claim, as I think you do here, that Islam itself can be characterised adequately by the account of al-Awa’s position in Abdo’s book. After all, Tantawi is a Muslim as well as al-Awa, and their positions appear to be quite different.

  24. Nicholas Ridout,
    Not wanting to hog this comment section, I shall make my comment and attempt – so that I am not accused of saying the same thing repeatedly – not to reply.
    I picked on your comment as it suggests naivete. I never thought you a supporter but, instead, one who confuses trees for the forest. I note that there are many very wonderful Muslims, some of whom are of my acquaintance. That, of course, does not address the view of the vast majority of Muslims – decidedly in favor, at least theologically speaking, of Jihad fi sabil Allah -. In that, I think that what Ms. Abdo reports is precisely accurate.
    Now, there are many, many Muslims who work for peace. However, the trend – and dare I say the Orthodox view – is decidely the other way and for discernable reasons. So, if we examine a phenomena and confuse the trees for the forest, we make rather bad mistakes. The President of the US comes to mind with his notions of bringing democracy to a part of the world where large portions of it view it as an afront to the faith. That means he has the ire of between 35% and maybe 65% of Muslims.
    I note: the appropriate analogy, in my humble opion, for the present – and our war for democracy – in the Islamic regions is the period in the 19th Century when the Europeans were pushing their idea of humanitarian intervention on Muslims which took the form of demanding implimentation by the Ottoman Empire of the Tanzimet reforms. Those reforms pertained to equality for non-Muslims, something which is not permissible in classical Islamic theology and runs afoul of numerous laws in Shari’a and in Islamic “common law” based on that Shari’a.
    Humanitarian intervention coupled with the crumbling of the Ottoman Empire brought with it great resentment against non-Muslims. The view was that the reforms demanded were an attack on Islam – which, in fact, they were in a way -.
    That, along with the problems associated with a crumbling empire, helped lead to rather genocidal ideologies and behavior, against the Maronites (40,000 or so people hacked to death by Syrian Muslims in order to prevent the Tanzimet reforms) and later against the Armenians (and this was well before the genocide during WWI).
    In 1894-96, more or less 250,000 Armenians were butchered, often to screams of Allahu Akbar (i.e. the killings were in good conscience, so to speak), at the instigation of Abdul Hamit, the Sultan, who thought it against Shari’a and Allah’s will to grant equality for non-Muslims, especially in the part of the empire nearby.
    Today, we have murderous and genocidal tendencies among a great many Muslims. Such Muslims believe their faith is under attack. Part of it is foreign policy but a good chunk of it, as asserted by Paul Berman and Bernard Lewis and even Ms. Abdo and others, is cultural, as in Liberalism overwhelming Islam and as in the disapearance of Islamic law and rules from society – something many Muslims, especially the Brotherhood – hopes to remedy. And we have backward regions going backwards. That is a period of grave danger.
    Now, you can think about trees who have fine ideas. But the issue here is a forest burning. So, complex and variegated is, to me, a nonsensical analysis that hides rather than elucidates.

  25. I am afraid I am going to stick to my view that the situation is more complex than the one you describe, and I don’t think it is naive of me to do so. I am quite willing to accept historical facts including those which show Muslims to have committed atrocities that we both find appalling. Sadly, as we must I think admit, the commission of appalling atrocities has not been the exclusive preserve of Muslims in the 20th century. My own country has perpetrated a few, and some of those against Muslims. Christian nations have a pretty nasty record over a comparable period. But even though I rather dislike Christianity as a religion, I see no intrinsic connection between evils perpetrated by Christianity and Christians more generally. That is to say I don’t want to generalise too rapidly from historical evidence, partly because I prefer to respect the specificity of that evidence (as evidence of what happened rather than evidence of how a whole and diverse religious community think and behave).
    Nor am I ready to accept speculations along the lines of between 35% and 65% of Muslims having their ire roused by the notion of democracy on the grounds that it is an affront to their faith. Again, this strikes me as a speculation founded in a view of Islam as far less complex than I think it is. The issue of the compatibility between Islam and demcocracy has been widely debated, and there remain differing opinions. I incline strongly to the view that there is no such incompatability, and doubt very much that Muslims see it that way either: I have not noticed much evidence of powerful anti-democratic feeling among India’s over 100 million Muslims, for example. Nor among the Egyptians, Jordanians, Bahrainis, Moroccans, Iraqis, Iranians (and the list could go on) who have struggled to win democratic rights for themselves and continue to do so. I just don’t think it is really accurate to describe as merely exceptions to orthodoxy all the evidence of diversity that is readily available. That, to return to topic, is why I think the quality of discussion is generally (!) better when we avoid generalisations and terminology that obscures complexity.

  26. Here’s a recent AP photo caption. Note the descripton of the Kadima party members!
    http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/060322/481/jrl11303221425
    “Militants of the Kadima party stand next to portraits of acting prime minister Ehud Olmert, right, and ailing prime minister Ariel Sharon at the Kadima headquarters in Jerusalem Wednesday March 22, 2006. The centrist party Kadima (forward in English) was founded by Ariel Sharon in Nov. 2006 after leaving the right-wing Likud party and is the front-runner in the polls for the upcoming March 28 general elections. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty).”

  27. Very good! Nice spot.
    Of course it would carry a slightly different meaning if it said ‘Members of the militant Kadima Party’.
    It’s the adjectives I hate! [fake rage]

  28. Nicholas Ridout,
    My last sentence on this topic follows. You clearly did not read a word I wrote.

  29. Neal, everyone, please don’t use such great blocks of bolded type. They make everything hard to read and (like all-capping) give a shrill appearance to anything regardless of content.
    I wasn’t aware anyone in comments cd do anything except italics and hyperlinks, and I prefer to keep it that way.
    Also, take care re discourse-hogging.

  30. Helena,
    I shall avoid bold text. I thought it would be easier to distinguish from my own writing.
    I trust you do not think I hogged anything on this comment section. 4 out of 29, with this comment (unrelated to the topic) being my 5th, is hardly hogging. Another poster on this comments page has, I believe, 8 posts.

  31. Actually, Neal, Nicholas appears to have read your words and given reasons why he doesn’t agree with your opinions.

  32. Donald Johnson,
    I do not think so.
    I think he dismissed my words as if they had not been read. I did not make a connection between Islam and action, I spoke about an historical analogy involving people raised in the same basic culture. That is rather different than what he addresses.
    Be that as it may, he has no answer for my actual argument: connecting the events of the 19th Century to the present. His argument is that other countries have done bad things which is a logic fallacy and not an argument. His argument about percentages is also not an argument. It is merely a mistatement of verifyable fact. The available evidence, vis a vis the Palestinian Arabs, is that they, by a wide majority, want to be ruled according to Shari’a. The same for Jordanians and Egyptians, unless the polling conducted is all wrong.

  34. Interesting piece by Ilene– though I note it was her editor who put the “moderate” tag on Kadima.
    However it’s not a crazy tag if you compare Kadima with parties to the right of it, of which there are many (including the ones described there… and also Benny Elon’s National Union.) I would say Kadima really does represent the strong center of current Israeli opinion. Olmert’s goal is far from territorially maximalist.
    One interesting govt coalition Naomi Chazan and others mentioned as possible when I was there was Kadima plus Lieberman plus Labor… But I guess we’ll know the raw election results very soon and then the coalition-formation process will begin.

  35. Helena,
    I can see where this “moderate relative to the Israeli political scene” argument is coming from but I don’t really buy it. If an entire country embraces right-wing politics how useful is such an approach?
    From another point of view, as Nicholas Ridout points out above, maybe some terms are not useful. Noam Chomsky has criticized the label “liberal”, for example. I think many MSM articles have innuendo.
    I have the feeling that Kadima is viewed in a positive way by the MSM. I wonder if there is a tentative view that they represent a reasonable approach that will resolve the conflict. Most Americans seem to like it when a group can position itself as “moderate” and between extremes.

  37. Most Americans seem to like it when a group can position itself as “moderate” and between extremes.
    I think that most people prefer moderation over extremism.

  38. I doubt that Kadima will form a government with Labor and Lieberman’s party. As Johnathan mentioned on his blog, Lieberman gave a brief feint to the center, with a largely secular platform. But as he has gained momentum, he’s got back to his racist rhetoric. A few weeks ago, Yossi Beilin was meeting with Lieberman. Now, Labor and Meretz have both ruled out working in a coalition with him.
    One thing I will note about Lieberman. He is an extremist and a racist. But I knew that this conflict had reached a turning point when, a year or so ago, he was proposing dividing Jerusalem.
    I knew, at that point, that there was no longer a serious “Greater Israel” crowd that could carry the day.
    My prediction, the new government consists of Kadima, Labor, Shas, and United Torah Judaism. Meretz is left out, because Olmert knows that they will vote “yes” for any withdrawal even if they are in opposition, and that the reputation they would give his government isn’t worth the 4 or 5 seats that they bring into it.

  39. Joshua,
    About Lieberman, I don’t think that deep down he is anything. I think that he is, ultimately, pro-Lieberman. (The voting symbol for his party – Yisrael Beitenu – is the letter “Lamed”.)
    Last week someone on Channel 2 News actually checked out who’s on his list. They almost run the gamut of political positions. They appear to be in it for Lieberman and for their own sake.
    One analyst – I think it was Hanan Kristal – said a couple of weeks ago that Olmert is like Sharon, his mentor, in that his ideal is to be in the center. In that case, his “dream team” would be with Labor flanking his left and Lieberman his right.
    Labor, in my opinion, won’t sit with Likud because of internal social and economic issues, and there’s too much bad blood between Amir Peretz and Bibi. Lieberman is enough of a populist to support Labor’s social demands, and enough of a pragmatic self-promoter to forget everything he has said about population swaps and cantons and provide the bodies for a coalition. Further, if Likud gets less than 15 seats, Bibi will be finished politically (which is something that I would certainly like to see). In this case, Lieberman would rather be in the government, at any cost, and in position to vie for leadership of a future Likud-Yisrael Beteinu bloc. (Under the recently modified Likud constitution, there’s a cooling off period for new members before they can compete for leadership positions within the party.)
    In this constellation, I think we are looking at a clear majority government of around 64 MKs, as follows:
    Kadima ~ 34
    Labor ~ 20
    Yisrael Beteinu ~ 10
    In this case, I don’t think that Olmert would have to go to Shas, particularly because they are patronage hogs and would demand portfolios. Also because their religious demands are anathema to most of Lieberman’s potential constituents, and they would not likely forget this in the future.
    UTJ would be a more logical choice in rounding out the coalition to, perhaps, 67. They generally are not interested in portfolios and make do with an important committee chairmanship or two. In this case, there would be no reason for Meretz not to join and no reason for Olmert not to invite them, bringing the coalition to over 70 seats and isolating the opposition on the extreme right (the assumption being that the Arab parties would support the government from outside the coalition and not cooperate with the opposition). In addition, Olmert could add the pensioners party, which is expected for the first time to make the minimum and gain two seats. (Maybe I should think about joining that party!)
    At any rate, it’s hard to tell. The various polls are all over the place, with roughtly a quarter of likely voters still undecided. It’s also supposed to rain today, which will affect voting (as well as the barbecue I’d planned, as election day is a day off.)
    There is another possibility that occurs to me. If Likud does very poorly and Netanyahu resigns immediately (presumably joining you all in the US), a more moderate and flexible constellation could emerge under someone like Sylvan Shalom. In this case, Labor could sit with Likud, and Olmert could get the concessions from them to bring them into the coalition instead of Lieberman. (This would also have the effect of damaging Lieberman’s immediate political future, another thing that I would like to see – even at the expense of having to listen to a buffoon like Sylvan Shalom and his moronic wife for another four years.)

  40. The available evidence, vis a vis the Palestinian Arabs, is that they, by a wide majority, want to be ruled according to Shari’a.
    um, huh?
    how exactly does that reflect the most recent palestinian election results, which no one seems to claim were over 40% for hamas, the only even vaguely sharia-based party to get a substantial part of the vote.
    all the more bizarre a conclusion to draw given that most commentators have noticed that a vote for hamas was not necessarily a vote for their religious orientation, given fatah’s lovely combination of corruption and eagerness to sell out palestinian refugee interests.
    and even more bizarre given that palestinian islamists have tended to have their greatest strength among refugees living under israeli military occupation – and so it’s reasonable to conclude that palestinians in diaspora, palestinian citizens of israel, and refugees outside gaza/west bank/east jerusalem will be even less islamist inclined than the voters in the recent election.
    um…
    were you the one talking about academic standards of evidence a few posts ago?
    vey iz mir.

  41. rozele:
    http://www.comm.cornell.edu/als481/readings/Revisiting%20the%20arab%20street.pdf
    The linked study was conducted by the University of Jordan. I’d draw your attention to figure IV.2 on page 52, showing that a large majority of Palestinians believe that “Sharia must be the only source of legislation” and an overwhelming majority believe it should be “a source.”
    Here’s one from last year, via PCRD:
    http://www.minfo.gov.ps/polls/english/10-03-05.htm
    When asked “Do you prefer that the Palestinian Authority (PA) adopt laws endorsed by Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) or the Islamic Shari’a in the Palestinian law?” (68.6%) of Palestinians express inclination towards the Islamic Shari’a, whereas 15.9% are more inclined towards laws endorsed by the PLC, 11.3% would support both laws endorsed by PLC and Islamic Shari’a, and 4.2% express no opinion.
    Here’s one from BirZeit showing a slimmer majority, but still a very clear preference for ‘sharia’ versus a secular legal code.
    http://home.birzeit.edu/dsp/DSPNEW/polls/poll_10/analysis.htm
    Hope this is helpful.

  42. rozele,
    There was a poll taken of Egyptians in Egypt, Jordanians in Jordan and Palestinian Arabs in the territories. Approximately 65% said, in each area, that they would prefer rule according to Shari’a. That is the basis for my comment. You can find reference to the poll on Martin Kramer’s website.
    The election, in fact, reflects rather well the polling. It explains the strength of, in particular, HAMAS. That a person wants Shari’a, of course, does not mean that HAMAS wins the vote of that person. It is, however, no doubt a factor. And it is an important factor.
    I should also add this from The Boston Globe:
    *****************************
    “Fatah suffered a stunning defeat in the Jan. 25 Palestinian legislative elections, in part because of the success men like Aweidat have had in luring voters to Hamas. How Aweidat lured those voters is instructive: He attracted supporters not through the web of social services typically cited as the source of Hamas’s appeal, or with talk of the extravagances of Fatah, but through religion.
    ”Fatah doesn’t tell people to pray. This contradicts the Koranic verses which say that my prayer, my devotion, my life, and my death are for God,” Aweidat explained. ”Life should be colored by Islam. Hamas has a comprehensive theory of society and life, dealing with everything through its vision of Islam.”
    The conventional wisdom says it’s the other way around, that Palestinians turned to Hamas because they were fed up with corruption and instability, or disappointed with the peace process-and that they embraced Hamas despite the party’s Islamist platform. Virtually everyone following the Palestinian election-Palestinian academics, politicians allied with Fatah, and even the Israeli military and Western diplomats-bought into this wisdom. The prediction was that Hamas would capture at best a third of the seats in the Palestinian legislature.
    How is it that these analysts all made the same mistake? Part of the explanation lies in the tendency of the largely secular Palestinian elite to underestimate the strength of Islamism. Influential Palestinian analysts predicted that Hamas could never win a majority, because its extremist religious views-and its commitment to unending war with Israel-would not resonate with the Palestinian public.
    Khalil Shikaki, the Palestinian pollster considered the most reliable monitor of public opinion in Gaza and the West Bank, was caught off guard by the election results. After more than a decade of public opinion research, Shikaki still believes that liberal democracy has strong support among Palestinians, and says that Hamas ”will find resistance from the public if they try to impose their social agenda,” which is based on a strict adherence to the Koran and would, among other things, ban alcohol and curtail the rights of Palestinian women. But even Shikaki admitted this week that when it came to the election, ”we got it completely wrong.”
    *****************************
    “A vote for Islam,” The Boston Globe, February 5, 2006, at http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2006/02/05/a_vote_for_islam/?page=full
    I hope that answers your question.

  43. rozele,
    http://www.comm.cornell.edu/als481/readings/Revisiting%20the%20arab%20street.pdf
    The linked study was conducted by the University of Jordan. note figure IV.2 on page 52, showing that a large majority of Palestinians believe that “Sharia must be the only source of legislation” and an overwhelming majority believe it should be “a source.”
    BirZeit conducted a poll yielding similar results. (google birzeit and “opinion poll no. 10” — i’d link myself but helena’s filter is blocking it).
    PCRD also has a poll up with similar results. Large majorities in all cases.

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